prolog

A green-eyed, amber-haired child burst out of the engulfed building, dumped the unconscious kid with the medics like a hot potato, and collapsed immediately. No more pain, no more flame—just crunch and sweetness of night. Lovely.

"base, dear, wake up."

"...?"

"Base. WAKE UP!"

His eyes flew open, immediately blinded by what was essentially the sun's grudges against humanity assaulting his eyeballs,

"Ah—okay! I'm up! Chill!" base stared at the faceless giant standing over him like a Final Boss in a very low-budget MMO RPG.

"Welp, I'm dead, aren't I?"

The faceless giant nodded with an awkward reluctance. "Yes. And, uh, funny story—it was kinda my fault.. oppsie!"

Base blinked. "Okay, one: who are you? Two: How do you oopsie accidentally kill someone? And three: what now? Do I get a prize? A refund? A hot lady?"

His voice was dripping with sarcasm.

"For your first question, I'm God's assistant. Call me Mochi. Second—well, I was burning incense when, um… an ember fell to Earth and started the fire. Fortunately, nobody got killed. Except, you know… you."

Base just stared, his jaw hanging open like a snake's unhinged jaw, ready to lash out at Mochi,

Mochi coughed, forcing his tone to sound confident, "As for the third, you're being reincarnated as a phoenix. Don't even ask for overpowered abilities. I already gave you everything. Classic human wishlist stuff."

"Wait. wha—?!"

The universe went into fast-forward before base could utter another word and yeeted him into reincarnation.

Chapter 1